From Hampshire Parent Carer Network

Education Select Committee

HPCN and Parent Voice have worked together on the SE7 and Hampshire pathfinder workstreams, so it was natural for us to submit a joint response to the Education Select Committee when they asked for people to feed back on the Draft legislation. A small team of us started discussing and collating our thoughts on what our response should be, and we also held a wider team meeting where we discussed some of the issues we felt were important to feedback on. The small group then took on the task of writing our submission, circulating it frequently between ourselves and to others involved, to ensure that we did not miss any important messages.

We seemed to live and breathe the Draft legislation by the time the submission was ready to be sent in. We emailed it over to the Select Committee and within 3.5hours of submission we had received a phone call asking whether we could provide verbal evidence at the Select Committee on 6 November. Although this felt daunting and a little bit scary, we absolutely agreed to do this, as it was an amazing opportunity for us to directly influence policy and national decision making. A copy of our written submission is available online http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmeduc/631/631we06.htm

Sharon and Carol were the two parent representatives invited to attend the Select Committee hearing. Carrie Britton from the National Network of Parent Carer Forums offered to come along to give moral support, which was most welcome. When we arrived we were shown through to the corridor outside the room where the hearing would take place and we sat and waited until it was time for us to go through. We had the opportunity to have a look inside the room beforehand, and also to meet the two young people who were speaking in the same session as us. The session was over very quickly, and it felt as though there was so much more we could have said. Afterwards we were able to listen to MP Edward Timpson give his verbal evidence also.